


Way Down We Go

by CJJenkins



Category: Soul Eater, X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, medusa is evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJJenkins/pseuds/CJJenkins
Summary: He has all but forgotten his time as a Death Scythe, ready to give up in the life he had. Her life is just beginning. Both search for the family they never had amidst the carnage of their lives. Maka finds sanctuary in the form of Spirit Albarn and the two fight tirelessly alongside each other for the people they love. Logan AU.
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to the great Blinkfl0yd for making this amazing idea come true. I could not have down this without them!

There’s a leak somewhere in the building, she can hear it through the walls. A quiet but insistent  _ plap plap plap  _ that’s keeping her awake. It smells like mildew again, she wonders if it’s near the leak.  _ Probably _ . The night is filled with howls of her friends and the gentle leak, a simple dichotomy that will never let her sleep. 

Maka is six years old when she dies for the first time. They don't let her stay like that for long, but she feels her soul start to slip as they put the paddles to her ribcage and shock her heart back to the land of the living. Her life is an endless and repetitive slide show of being on the wrong end of needles, scalpels, and restraints. There's something inside her that they're looking for, something that will help them win. She doesn't know what war they're fighting but she knows she doesn't want to be part of it anymore. 

For years Maka is stuck being treated as a test subject. Once they draw the blades from her skin, the experiments grow in number. It hurts every time. She doesn’t change when she wants to, it’s only when the head scientist slithers in and makes her take the medicine. 

When Maka is nine she watches as her friend is stomped on by a guard, watched as blood stains the concrete under Soul, as he is dragged to a different holding cell. This is when she decides that she'll save him, she'll save everyone. She has to because otherwise, everyone will  _ die.  _

A new nurse joins that same year, her name is Eruka and she’s small with white hair. Maka likes to think that she doesn’t want to do all the horrible things to the kids that she’s told to. The girl starts to actually believe that when Eruka and a scary male nurse named Free begin to throw the kids’ birthday parties and give them hugs. They whisper about how it’s  _ so wrong _ what’s happening in the labs. Maka wants to agree, but she doesn’t know anything else. 

The days there seemed to drag on, a monotony of shaky gurneys and iridescent light that brought a certain lull to the pain and screams trapped between the brick and polyethylene doors. That is until Eruka tells the children to be ready when the guards switch shifts. None of the kids really ask questions, out of fear of seeming disobedient, so they’re ready when Eruka and Free quietly open their doors and sneak them out of Gorgon Labs.

It’s the first time she’s ever smelled fresh air, she can feel her lungs tighten from the newness. The other children have similar reactions, some staring up at the stars and others touching the gravel beneath their feet. 

  
  


All hell breaks loose. The gunshots make the children scatter like petrified animals. Maka sprints up a hill, down an alley, and under a car until her heart stops pounding. She waits, pebbles sticking into her ribs and hands and cheek. Her body hurts but she doesn’t move an inch. Eruka and Free will come for her, she knows they will. She just has to wait. 

Several hours pass and Maka fades in and out of consciousness, she keeps scanning for ankles and feet from under the rusted pickup, but she closes her eyes and hopes she hears them. She sees a faint flicker of silver-purple smoke in the distance. She  _ did _ close her eyes, she’s sure. The smoke dances closer and closer, and if it didn’t seem so familiar then maybe she would be afraid. The girl relaxes into the pavement when she hears Eruka call her name from down the alley. 

“Maka, come on now honey, we have to run.” Eruka hurriedly whispers while pulling at the girl’s arm.

They get to the outskirts of the city before they stop to breathe. Maka nearly collapses onto the dirt face-first. Her chest hurts like it’s on fire and she’s pretty sure her feet are bleeding. She wonders if it always feels that scary to be outside. She wonders if it always feels that good to run. The two make their way through western Texas.

“It’s only four hours on foot to get to California, they will probably have some problems getting over state lines.” Eruka smiles worriedly at Maka. 

The tiniest hint of a whistle takes the woman to the ground. A bullet from the endless night behind them. Her arm is flayed open, shoulder to elbow, but she grabs Maka’s hand with her remaining good one and tears off into the desert. Eruka whispers incantations and swear words at her arm to stop the bleeding, but it’s still a mess and she still lost too much blood. 

“We just need to keep moving.”

Eruka finally decides to stop running when they get five miles inside of California, her shoulder is wet with gore but she refuses to let Maka hurt anymore. Gorgon Labs created Maka with the most in mind, she wasn’t just an experiment at this point, the small-framed girl was a full-fledged weapon and they had every intention to use her. Eruka doesn’t quite know if she’s running away with Maka because she wants the child to be safe or because she wants the  _ world  _ to be safe. 

  
  
  


“Spirit, you’re waiting for me to die.” Lord Death wilts further under his cloak on the old hospital bed, surrounded by hydrangeas and morning glories that Stein has been tending to. 

“I’m not. I’m waiting until we aren’t being hunted. Then I’m getting the hell out of here.” The redhead glares at the older man. 

He can tell now, that Lord Death is just a shell of his once magnificent form, a husk of a God. Not just that, but something in Lord Death’s soul has simmered out too. Something vital to his being, it’s so far away from their tiny stucco house, hiding on the border between Mexico and California. All three of them are broken, all of them lost something so integral to existence that without it everything is just pain and fury. 

There’s a lot of shame when he drives ‘ _ home _ ’; maybe it’s the dust swirling behind his back tires just right, or the look on Stein’s face when he unlocks the door and steps in. Whatever the reason, it’s enough to ruin his appetite. Stein starts to pick up on the leftover food rotting in the trash or sink, he glares over his glasses but keeps his mouth shut for the most part. 

Finding sedatives and mood stabilizers that are strong enough to work on a god of death takes a lot of money and patience. Stein refuses to leave the house so it’s up to Spirit to make shady drug deals with anyone who will provide. Death’s episodes are getting worse as time goes on, something to do with what Asura hit him within that last battle ruined him and, though he tries very hard, the old man can’t control it anymore. 

So, every day, Stein or Spirit pump Lord Death with benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and anything that works like diazepam. Spirit came up with the cocktail; both preventative and maintainable without killing the old goat. 

Spirit can hear the local broken deity whisper secrets from behind the door.

“-Angel,  _ angel,  _ come to us!” 

The younger man thinks this sounds too much like speaking in tongues as he slams the door open. 

“Death, who are you talking to?” 

The man on the bed stares at him, hollow eyes doing unnerving things to his mind and heart. He looks gaunt, his cloak clings to him in a sickly way as Spirit steps closer. A wounded animal. 

“It’s time for your meds, boss,” Spirit says as he fills the syringe in the light. Death is silent, pouting probably. He lost his mind long ago. 

As the needle nears the frail old man, Spirit can feel his soul be ripped apart. It’s slow at first but he can tell it’s an episode as Death slaps the 500 mg of Amytal Sodium across the room. The room feels like it’s shaking, or at least his vision is. His muscles spasm and his throat starts to close up. His knees buckle under him and he gracelessly hits the ground in a  _ thud _ . Spirit focuses on the act of heaving his chest up and down. Up and down. He crawls, achingly, towards the syringe, ears ringing. 

His eyes refuse to focus and he can hear a sort of haunting song that comes through as a screech in his head, nails on chalkboard as his soul gets brutally beaten by the savage wavelength. It takes everything in him to not give into Death, because he  _ wants _ to but he also can’t let his friend writhe in agony like this. He focuses his resolve and deliberately demands his chest to move:  _ Up and Down. _

Lord Death howls, it’s enough to rattle the window frames of their worn-down house.

_ Up and down, Spirit, hurry the hell up. _ The younger man finally wraps his digits around the medicine and painfully crawls back to the writhing man on the opposite side of the room. This is how they felt, he thinks, all of his friends and other death scythes. Their brains being split in two, their souls being called to the great unknown by the God of Death. 

There’s so much screaming and there’s no telling who’s voice is who’s, it’s just a cacophony of blood-curdling yelps as Spirit drives the needle deep into the shoulder of Lord Death, then everything starts to slowly fade. The memories stay, of how he saw Justin, just a tiny boy, bleed from his eyes and convulse at his feet. How Sid slid to the floor as his heart slowed to a stop. All of them were scared when they died, what an awful way to go. 

Death slips into a dreamless sleep and Spirit pulls the syringe from his shoulder then slips out the door in silence. His legs are weak beneath him, which is to be expected after soul dissonance. When he enters the kitchen, he sees Stein crumpled on the floor heaving and glaring at him. 

“The fuck was that?” 

“He freaked out when I tried to give him the meds, he was yelling about nursery rhymes.” Spirit sits on a barstool.

“I  _ told _ you the doses are too small and too spread out. He’s going to kill us all, just like back then.”

“That won’t happen. It was barely 30 seconds.” 

“Easy for you to say, you’ve resonated with him before so you’re less affected, I nearly slit my own throat to get away from the pain.”

“What do you want me to do?” Spirit slams his fist on the counter, “It’s not like I’m in a position to ask for a higher dose from a  _ drug dealer _ !”

Stein sighs, “Listen, I get it. I need you to understand that something must be done. He’s unsafe and if we can’t put him out of his misery, we have to figure something else out.”

“How could you even say that?” Spirit can feel the bite of tears in his eyes, “He’s your God too, he’s our  _ friend _ . You just want to kill him?”

“It’s the safest thing to do, “ Stein pauses, “for everyone, and you know it.” 

“I’m not having this conversation. If I find him dead, you’ll be next, understood?” 

“Sure, Spirit.” the taller man sighs, “I’ll follow your lead.”


	2. Chapter two

It’s the fourteenth day that Maka and Eruka have slept on the ground. They’ve changed locations, sometimes it’ll be an alley or on the soft desert sand. They’re still running, still scared. Eruka barely talks to her but she knows that they’re being followed, she can sense souls just on the outskirts of her range and most of them are vibrating with anger. She can feel Medusa’s soul the most, but it’s sheathed with something. Maka isn’t unfamiliar with fear, but she thinks she’s getting tired of it. 

They finally reach a sleazy motel that Eruka says they’ll stay in for a few days and Maka is quietly thankful for a shower and a bed. She tries to  _ play _ , which is a new thing for her. She found a jump rope and is excited to try it out. If this is her new normal, she doesn’t mind it at all. 

The burner phone that Eruka bought whistles from her nightstand and she can’t keep herself from jumping. She’s tired, so tired, but she knows that she has to get to the northern border before Medusa gets her hands on Maka. She finds the location of Spirit Albarn through message boards on the deep web, sightings of the old death scythe on the outskirts of Nevada. He’s a driver in Las Vegas, alive in well, but a little worse for wear. 

When she sees him for the first time, her lungs tighten. One of Lord Death’s confidants, alone in the taxi pick-up for North Las Vegas Airport, hair as red as blood. She calls for him before she can stop herself.

“Death Scythe!”

His eyes flash fear, then anger as he tries to get in his car faster than she can get to him. She calls for him, asks him to wait, but her hair looks too much like a witch’s for him to not want to run. 

“Wait, Please! I need your help!” She cries. 

“I don’t do that anymore.” He calls out the window as he drives off. 

Eruka is left with no options and an eleven-year-old girl who could kill trained soldiers with a flick of her wrist. She can’t give up now, not after how far they’ve come. 

  
  
  


“Someone found me today. Called me Death Scythe.” Spirit pours himself a finger of whiskey. 

“Wow. Do we need to pack up and leave?” Stein leans his chin on his palm.

“No. It was just some lady. She looked like a witch but she said she needed my help.”

“Dangerous.” 

“You’re telling me, I just can’t get the look on her face out of my head. She looked terrified, Frank.” 

“I’d be scared if I was a witch and saw a death scythe, too.” He glares at his friend.

“Not like that. Like, she was running from  _ something _ .” 

“Sounds like you want to help her.”

Stein eyes the shorter man over his classes.

“It’s not- it’s not that.” Spirit sighs at his friend, “I just don’t want her to die.”

Spirit stews on it that night. Did he want to save her? Does he want to be a savior again, just one more time? He doesn’t have a lot left in him but he hopes to do one more good thing because the last living death scythe dies out. He doesn’t want to be reckless or put Stein or Lord Death in any danger, but he feels like the right thing to do is to save this woman. 

Maybe he’s crazy, his martyr complex is demanding to be recognized. He wishes this wasn’t what life was, but it is and he’s stuck picking up the pieces of a world that he couldn’t protect the first time around. He can’t help but feel guilty for all the things he  _ didn’t  _ do. He didn’t save all those people, his friends who were killed by Lord Death’s soul dissonance, he didn’t kill Asura when the demon was  _ right in front of him _ . Now he’s stuck in this limbo in hiding, away from a world that needs his help.

He gets a call for pick up at some skeezy motel when it’s close to midnight. He thinks it may be the witch that needed help, but he goes anyway. He needs the money and a small part of him wants to hear her out, to see if he can do anything to help just one person on this godforsaken planet. 

When he sees her, he rethinks his want to save her. There’s this fear that bubbles up in his throat that he can’t quite swallow down. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

“Please, Death Scythe, I need your help.” She wobbles towards him.

“I don’t do that anymore, I gave that up a long time ago.” 

The woman falls to the asphalt and Spirit curses himself for only noticing her wounds after she collapsed. Her arm is drenched in blood from what he can only guess is a gunshot. She looks washed out, like she’s lost too much blood to be walking around or even  _ talking _ . He scoops her up and takes her directions to the motel room she’s been staying in. 

When he opens the door, the wind is knocked out of him and he’s knocked on his ass. It feels like a very small wrecking ball takes his legs out from under him, and as the two fall to the nasty carpeted floor of the motel room, the witch seems to scold the source of the ambush. 

“Maka! Knock it off, he’s the one I’ve been looking for!” she screams right in his ear.

“Maka? Who’s that?” Spirit asks as he nurses his tender knee caps.

“She’s the little girl hiding behind the bed, right there.” Eruka smiles and points at the sandy brown hair that peaks over the unmade bed linens. 

“A kid? What are you doing here, are you trying to kill her?” Spirit gets his rage back and spits it at the witch.

“My name is Eruka, I’m a nurse from Mexico City. I’m trying to save Maka, not kill her. We have been running for days now but we can’t seem to shake Gorgon Labs from our trail.” 

Spirit is at a loss for words, probably because the last time he heard the name Gorgon was when all of his friends died. He stares into the forest green eyes of the tiny monster that had just attacked him. He speaks before his mind can tell him not to.

“What do you need me to do?” 

Eruka looks like she’s going to cry from relief. With Spirit Albarn on their side, they actually have a fighting chance in hell. She, for the first time she began working at Gorgon Labs, feels like she did the right thing. Maka is now in the hands of someone who will protect her, no matter how much he knows her. 

The two of them talk about the logistics of crossing the country to the northern border, how much money Eruka is willing to give him to make sure her and Maka get there safely. They settle on leaving the day after tomorrow, which will leave Spirit enough time to get Lord Death and Stein settled for the time he’s gone. They say their goodbyes with an exchange of numbers and a promise to see each other on Thursday. 

Spirit goes to pick up Lord Death’s illegal prescription of heavy barbiturates at the local hospital, he waits in the parking lot and tries not to look suspicious in his ratty-looking taxi car. The back door opens.

“Sorry, I’m not on right now, I’m sure there’s another taxi somewh-“ He looks in the rearview mirror and his heart sinks into his stomach. 

“Death scythe.” A snake woman says, sweet as honey, in the back of the taxi. 

He flips around so fast and calls upon the blade that has been dormant in his form for years now. The woman raises her hands in faux surrender.

“I’m just here to talk, if I wanted to fight, I would’ve gone to that shitty stucco house you call a home that smells like dying god.” She smiles.

He can’t process it all, because their location is exposed, Death  _ and _ Stein are in danger. He failed- again.

“I’m just going to keep talking, make sure to pay attention now.” She digs in the pocket of her fur-lined long leather jacket and pulls out a picture of a little girl, “This is Maka, she’s my property, and someone very  _ stupid _ has taken her from me. Now I know this idiot would try to find you, so If you see her why don’t you give me a call?”

Spirit is still scared shitless, shaking in the front seat with his back pressed against the steering wheel, arm in scythe form. The woman gives him a look, expecting an answer and he stammers out a ‘yeah, sure’. She leaves a card with her number and decorative snakes on it. 

His heart won’t stop pounding. Soon after the woman leaves, his prescription comes to his passenger side door and it takes everything in him not to jump at the sight of another human. He hands over the money and gets the hell out of there.

———-

“Medusa knows where we are.” Spirit says as he slams the front door open, “Pack your shit”

“If she knows, why hasn’t she done anything yet?” Stein makes no move for haste.

“Because she’s trying to use us to find a girl, the girl I was asked to help.” 

Stein realizes that Spirit is shaking at this point. "What's our plan?" 

Spirit's eyes meet his friend for the first time since he came home. He wants to help, he really does, but the fear is snaking its way up his spine and over his organs. He's petrified. He can't get his nerves to settle, but that little girl, she's so small. He just wants to be brave for once in his pathetic life. 

"I won't forgive myself if I don't at least  _ try,  _ Stein." 

"I know." 

As if it's punctuation to Spirit's mind is made up, his phone vibrates. 

_ 'They found us, please get here soon'  _

His hands won't stop shaking, the whole drive there his hands quake against the steering wheel, his heart is damn near beating out of his chest. Spirit can't think of what will happen if Medusa is there. When he pulls up there’s no strange cars or evil women, it’s just as he had left it when he was here earlier. A quiet, unsuspecting motel. 

His soul shutters when he sees her door slightly ajar. He doesn’t want to look in, doesn’t want to see the carnage. But she at least deserves that much. 

Eruka sits, wrists bound to a chair, with her face bruised and bloody. She has slash marks through her chest, jagged and torn. He thinks they went at her with a chainsaw or something equally as brutal. He can’t breathe. She was eviscerated and he wasn’t there to save her. He looks down at her phone, an unfinished text glares at him.

_ ‘They’re here please hur-“ _

Another person he couldn’t save. He thinks of the girl and tears the motel room apart trying to find any sign of her, but she’s gone. Medusa must have gotten to her, the poor thing couldn’t be older than 12, she’s so slight and god he couldn’t save her either. 

Spirit’s mind is so loud that he barely hears the police sirens on their way to the murder scene. He can’t focus as he speeds home, can’t fathom what will come of that girl if she’s terrorized by Medusa. He’s sick to his stomach. He slams on his breaks when he’s in the weedy driveway of their hideout house. 

When he looks at his friend, it takes all he has not to cry as he shakes his head solemnly. 

“I see.” Stein feigns sadness the best he can. 

“I think we need to leave.” Spirit starts packing the few things needed to leave, “For real this time.” 

“What do you expect to do? It’s not like you even want to live.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Spirit tries not to feel hurt or get angry but he’s had a pretty fucked up day.

“Spirit, you’ve given up on living since this war began and ended 20 years ago. You drink until you can’t remember and it’s  _ killing _ you.” Stein makes eye contact, “You’re going into liver failure. Your sclera are jaundice, you can’t drink enough water to fight the dehydration. I am almost sure it's Cancer. What’s your goal? You’ll die soon anyway.”

Spirit stammers, he always  _ knew _ . He knew his body was failing him and that dying from old age wasn’t in the cards for him. Still, it hurts to hear it. The certainty of a quiet afterlife right as he finds a reason to maybe live is jarring. He was never sure he deserved to survive the war after all of his much stronger and courageous friends fell at the hands of Asura weaponized by Medusa. Actually, he was positive he didn’t deserve to survive that. He’s been living on borrowed time from the God that he babysits. 

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I can practically smell the rot of your liver. It has already spread to your kidneys. You’ll go into organ failure next, it’ll be painful.”

“Do I have enough time to save the girl?” Is all Spirit can ask. As Stein said, he already accepted his death long ago. 

“If you hurry.”


	3. Chapter three

Maka feels fear very well, she can function well when she’s terrified. She’s seen people die before, so it’s no shock as she watches a man cleave Eruka’s body over and over again. It’s not shocking to hear the wails of an adult she thought she loved. She’s not shocked when she watches the woman’s soul drift out of her body and into peace. 

One thing that growing up in the Labs taught her was how to be quiet. She’s light-footed and fast in the way that birds are; there one second and gone the next. She’s good at thinking fast, at knowing what will probably keep her alive for the longest amount of time. So, when the red-haired man pulled up in front of the motel Eureka had died in, the small girl quickly snuck into the trunk of his car. 

About three days ago, she began talking, if you can call it that, to a man in her brain. He seemed decently nice, and he was really worried about her. Having people worry about her is a very new feeling, another person that cares if she’s hurt or hungry was a simple pleasure she was never rewarded as she grew up. Maka can hear the man’s voice get louder as the car lurches to a stop and the car door is slammed shut. Her body moves on its own as she goes to the source of the voice. 

Her eyes stray in and out of focus, not unlike the way they flicker when she’s about to faint, but this time she doesn’t blackout. She  _ sees _ things, fluffy pastel things that bob in thin air, they vibrate with something humanly. There’s two shuttering in the kitchen as she cracks the door open to tiptoe upstairs. Another one waits in the room at the top, but she can feel it hiding something. It doesn’t move like the other two, doesn’t  _ breathe _ , it lays stagnant. 

Her vision is wholly returned to her as she cracks the door ajar to peek through. Her heart sinks. There’s a withered creature atop a twin bed, a brown paper bag clung to its face. She can’t figure out what it is, but it certainly isn’t human; something about it screams godly and she’s terrified. She can’t move as its head slowly turns her way. 

“Angel, you’re here.” It says softly. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Maka stands in the doorway, petrified. She hears the distant mumbling of the two downstairs, but she can’t bring herself to scream for help. The thing, whatever it is, tries to sit up in its nest of too many comforters and pillows. Its paper bag crunches as it moves and that’s almost enough for the little girl to tear back down the staircase. 

“I can feel that you’re scared, but you don’t have to be. I’m a friend.” It rasps. 

She can’t bring herself to run anymore, seeing the creature shakily move. It can’t do any harm to her now, it’s too pathetic. 

“I’m Lord Death,” It pauses, “Or, at least I used to be. You can call me Death.” 

She’s fearful again, or maybe at least a little creeped out.

“You’re safe, Spirit and Stein will protect you. It’s their job.”

“He was supposed to protect Eruka.” She mumbles under her breath. She won’t let herself cry.

“I know, I’m so sorry. Her soul is safe now, at least. She can rest.”

Maka’s ears grow hot as she hears someone ascend behind her. She scrambles, too fast on the hardwood floor, under Death’s bed. Her chest heaves, waiting to attack whatever comes through the door.

“Death, are you talking to yourself again?” The red-haired man chuckles, “Time for you meds.” 

“I’m talking to Angel, not myself.” It says from above her, matter-of-factly. 

“Enough of that nonsense. Here, take this.” 

She can’t see anything but worn-out dress shoes in front of her, scuffed up and bleached from the sun. 

“Angel, you can come out now, it’s safe.” Death says as the bed creaks. 

Maka believes him for some reason, maybe because of the soft edges of this man’s soul, maybe because she’s tired of running. Whatever the reason, she slowly crawls from under the duster ruffle and waits to make eye contact. 

“You’ve been hiding a girl under your bed?!” Spirit shouts, “That’s so wron- wait, Maka?” 

Her eyes snap up when she hears her name, she knows she’s scowling but hearing it makes her remember her friends and the cold fact that they might all be dead. Maka doesn’t expect the warm arms to envelop her when Spirit crouches down. 

“I was worried about you. I was going to come get you, thank death you’re here.” 

She squirms out of his arms as fast as she possibly can, skittering to the opposite side of the room like a scorned cat. The blush on her face is suffocating. 

Spirit smiles fondly at her and as he goes to say something else, probably just as embarrassing for her, his face contorts. There’s a ringing throughout the house, something like a police siren. It makes the air in the room feel like cement as Spirit runs as fast as he can downstairs. She can see their souls, whoever is coming. One very much like Lord Death, like it’s pretending, and five or six more that are  _ angry _ and  _ excited _ . 

_____

Spirit glares at the monitors lines up in the kitchen, all showing Gorgon Labs armored trucks barreling down their driveway. The fear in him will have to take a back seat to the fury that radiates within him, Medusa had said she didn’t want to fight them.

“Stein, get Death ready to leave. Keep the girl in hiding.” Spirit yells over his shoulder as he throws the front door and its screen wide open and rolls his sleeves up. 

He stands where the gravel of the drive meets the concrete of the front porch path. He’s not as lean as he used to be, more lanky and withered than he would like, but he’s sure he can still kick a few asses. 

The cars stop, kicking up rocks and dust. Medusa kicks her door open with a very misleading smirk on her face. 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Spirit Albarn, I thought we had a deal.” 

“I would never make a deal with a snake bitch.” He says evenly. 

“Protection for you, one worthless girl for me. Or do you want me to march in there and kill your precious death god? He’s already halfway there.”

“Leave him out of this.”

“Give me the girl. I’m done playing games.” Medusa seethes.

“I don’t have any fucking girls here.” Spirit wills his arm into a blade and holds his position.

“Cut the shit, I can smell her from here.” Medusa stomps forward, “I’ll give you until the count of five.” 

Spirit knows his body won’t be able to take a full witch attack, not really anyway, he’ll be useless to Maka by the end of it. But he can stall her, he can give the three of them time to get out of there and far enough away for a decent head start to Canada. He can do this, he  _ has _ to do this. 

Right?

Medusa begins counting down, each number is punctuated with another step closer to him. At three, she releases her soul protection and it makes his skin crawl. It’s eerily similar to the war and he fights, hard, to not fall into a pit of despair as she gets to two. 

He sees Maka before he hears her, as her too-big boot collides with Medusa’s rib cage. The men from the cars are charging but Spirit is too shell shocked to move until he hears Maka's battle cry. She's so small but she screams so loud, loud enough for him to remember what he’s fighting for. 

He hadn’t known that she was a weapon too, but the way she calls on her blood to make a blade is too easy for her like she’d had to do it time and time again with perfect accuracy. It’s like this little girl has more battle training than him, and that’s such a scary and sad thought to him. This girl has been conditioned for war. 

Maka cleaves a man from knee to thigh and blood bathes her and the dusty ground at her feet. She’s dog-piled on, at least three men try to pin her face down on the ground, but her back flashes pale silver and skewers the men on top of her. She’s horrifying, a little demon, too fast and quiet to fight against. 

All that’s left is Medusa, standing among the bodies of her fallen henchmen. She smirks, at Maka specifically, and puts her hands up in feign surrender. 

“Maka, sweetie, I think it's about time you come home.” 

The little girl is silent, but her blades stay at the ready on her knuckles, dripping blood.

“You know I know where Soul and the other’s are. I could make sure they’re safe if you come with me.” The witch-woman smiles. 

Spirit laughs, “You used the same line on me about my friends all those years ago. Get some new material.” 

“You couldn’t save your friends, no matter how hard you tried, so shut your goddamn mou-“ Medusa is cut off by Maka’s tiny blade slipping between her fourth and fifth ribs, blood pours quietly from the witches mouth as Maka darts away. 

“Soul, Liz, Patty, Tsubaki, Black Star, Kilik, Jackie, Kim, Harvar.” Maka chants from a safe distance, her hands shaking. 

“If you think this will stop me, you're wrong, I’m going to make sure all of your friends are de-“ Spirit’s fist stops Medusa cold.

“She always had a glass jaw.”

The two of them, covered in blood and sore from their fight, walk back into the Stucco house and get ready to hit the road.

  
  



	4. Chapter four

Spirit has never been very tech-savvy, so when Eruka's phone finally lights up after he figured out how to plug it in, he's at a loss. There's no password and next to nothing on it, except for his saved number and a couple of videos. His heart aches when he sees her unsent text to him: 

_ 'They’re here, please hurry’ _

He wishes he could have saved her too, even though she was a witch. She still wanted what's best for Maka, what's best for the world. 

He watches the only video on the phone hoping that it might explain something about why Medusa is after Maka, why they killed a witch. Spirit is scrambling to put pieces together.

Apparently, Gorgon Labs took to breeding killing machines after the Great War. Every single one spliced with weapon DNA and essence of the Kishin, black blood. The children were tortured, some killed and brought back, just to see how the black blood would react. Eruka and Free, her ally in saving the children, gathered as much information as they could before they gathered the children and ran from Mexico City. 

Eruka explains in the video that since the children were genetically modified, Gorgon Labs collected as much weapon blood as they could so they didn’t have to start from scratch. He knows what’s coming before the ghost of the which says anything. Maka is created from his blood, his seed. He thinks he has known from the second he saw her blades; matte black and silver like his. He’s not as shocked as he should be, but the pit in his stomach grows bigger with every second that passes. 

He has a child, even if he didn’t raise her, and he’s dying. A slow, painful, ugly death that she has to bear witness too until she’s safe.  _ But really, will she ever be truly safe?  _ Spirit refuses to let her down

He gathers Lord Death’s paper bags to cover the shriveled maw of a face he once covered with his mask and piles canned food and chips into a bag before going to gather everyone to leave. Medusa  _ will  _ be back and he can’t afford another fight in the shape he’s in. He just needs to get Stein to grab all the necessities while he wrangles Maka and Death into the car. He’s not sure how he’s going to tell Stein that Maka is technically his daughter, but he figures he has time to work that out. 

Except he doesn’t. Stein is nowhere to be found on the property. Spirit checked cameras, called his cell phone, and just as he thought there was no trace of him, he spots Stein’s shattered glasses in the gravel driveway next to a sizable pool of blood. There’s no sign of Medusa or her henchmen left, she took Stein. 

His stomach is sick. 

How could he have missed that? His only remaining friend being taken from under his nose. His blood starts to boil when he thinks of Maka or Lord Death being taken too, but when he races up the stairs to check if they're still there, the two are sitting on Death's floor talking about god knows what.

He's only partially relieved because they need to get out of there before Medusa comes back but Stein is with her and he can't for the life of him think straight. He's panicking. How is he supposed to do this without Stein? He's not smart or competent or brave, he's a husk of what he was, and even then, what he was never was very great. 

Maka stares at him, big evergreen eyes that drill into his. She isn't expecting anything, just observing. The tiny girl looks familiar in this moment, something from his past that is seeping into the present. He feels like a father in this brief moment. His heart aches. 

"Stein is missing. I think Medusa took him. Get your shit, we have to leave." 

  
  
  


He can feel himself getting progressively sicker. It's in his bones, he thinks. Everything hurts, he's tired, but he has to finish this. He at least needs to make some heroic final gesture to make up for all the bullshit he’s done in his past.  _ Like letting his friends die.  _ Yeah, like letting his friends die. His life has been one failure after another and he figures that has to count for something, he definitely has enough karma built up on his side to make sure this little girl has a chance in hell of making it. 

Lord Death is in the backseat of Spirit’s tiny cab with Maka. The two are playing patty cake as they drive in the dark of night. How they can see is beyond Spirit, so he focuses on the lullaby of the asphalt and tires. When his eyes threaten to not stay open anymore, he pulls into a rest stop until morning. He’s almost worried that they’ll be jumped in the night, but sleep takes him anyway. 

There’s a little bit of guilt and happiness when he wakes up in the morning and everyone is safe and sound in the back seat. He wonders how many more times he’ll be able to think that, he also wonders how Stein is and how he’s doing. Spirit doesn’t let himself dwell too much on the pain in his chest as he turns the ignition. 

Maka still doesn’t talk, not really. Sometimes her and Lord Death have conversations, but it’s more like soul Morse code than anything else. Spirit can only get faint glimpses of it, just tiny ebbs and flows of his former meister’s wavelength. He wonders what they talk about because he can hear little chuckles every now and then escape from the backseat. 

Nothing happens for a while, they have no creepy cars ailing them and they have no mysterious numbers calling constantly. It’s almost like a nice family road trip. Almost. Spirit nears the edge of Las Vegas and has to stop the car to get his lungs to work again. He wants to blame it on the cancer or maybe even allergies, but he knows as well as Lord Death that when they pass the Death Weapon Meister Academy, it will still be destroyed. What they fought for no longer exists. 

“Brings back old memories.” Death coo’s from behind him.

There’s symbolism there, Spirit knows it. His body takes over when his mind can’t handle the stress, he’s on autopilot as he pulls into the abandoned and disheveled, war-torn parking lot of the DWMA. It’s just a shell of its form, a sunken temple for old gods and useless values. This is where he made the ghosts that haunt him, this is his graveyard. 

The memories are unorganized, he remembers the end before the actual battle; he remembers his palms on the cobblestone, knuckles busted and bruised, the stench of burning flesh, a constant ringing in his ears, how hoarse his throat was from screaming. He remembers Lord Death’s crumpled form from across the courtyard, the god’s old mask obliterated and laying in shards on the ground. He remembers asking for anyone to help, begging the air to return to his lungs. 

After the end, Spirit remembers the beginning. There had been many reports that Arachne was coming, they just had no idea how soon. No one was prepared for her black blooded atrocities to march right up the steps, no one expected them to openly slaughter children. That’s where it all started to fall apart, the kids that just wanted to keep evil at bay. Lord Death sent the children to be slaughtered and maimed. The Death Scythes told him to get everyone to safety, but he was too greedy, too sure of the DWMA’s power. 

Arachne had smuggled Asura out of the basement of the DWMA right under their noses. How?-No one is sure, but she did it. She fed him souls of innocents until he was fully-fledged and ready to attack. There was no way to win the fight, that’s what Spirit thought for a  _ second. _ Just a second. However, a second of doubt, a second of fear, that’s all it took to bring the DWMA down like a tower of cards. 

First, it’s Azusa; her spine pulverized by Asura’s wavelength. The next that died was Marie, eviscerated as she landed the first assault on the hulking Kishin. The last was Justin, a tiny boy who had just had himself a death scythe. 

Spirit clambers out of the car and vomits. It just keeps coming, even when he has nothing left to puke. His stomach just keeps retching, over and over. He couldn’t save them, what makes him think he can even help Maka? Isn’t he just going to keep letting everyone down?

Maka’s tiny hand is pressed between his shoulder blades. He’s hunched over himself, bile seeping into the pavement in front of him. He stops heaving. 

_ It’s time to leave.  _ He thinks, or maybe Maka says to him in soul-code. Whatever the case, he nods and gets back into the driver's seat. 

  
  



	5. Chapter five

Spirit is in rough shape and it just gets worse as time goes on. He’s fading fast. He thinks Maka notices because she’s taken to sitting in the passenger seat like she’s waiting for him to pass out and not be able to drive anymore. He wonders if it’s happened yet, he really would like to think he would remember falling asleep at the wheel but his mind is buzzing all the time and his memory is all but gone. 

He’s a grown man but he wishes someone would tell him where to go or what he’s supposed to do. He would love to have Stein here more than anything, but friends go missing and die often in his life. The realization that Stein could be dead or will be soon is jarring, but nothing can really shock Spirit into crying right now. Things just progressively get worse until the end.

The drive through Utah is almost uneventful, almost because when they stop by a gas station and Maka almost brawls with a grown man over nerds rope while Spirit changes Lord Death's paper bag mask. He didn't become a father for this reason, he's bad at taking care of people and things, he gets overwhelmed too easily. 

They stop in a town called Green River, it's made of two gas stations and a hotel and is the only civilization for miles on either side of it. They're about two hours from Colorado and then they have another hour before an actual city after that. It takes some wrangling to get Maka and Death into the hotel suite, getting them to bathe is even more frustrating. Spirit really isn't cut out for this, but he's thankful because Lord Death doesn't smell like rot as much anymore. 

"I'm heading to the gas station to get some clothes. They won't be pretty but they'll be clean." Spirit says to no one in particular as he shrugs on his coat. 

Before he leaves, he shows Maka where the sedatives are  _ just in case _ . She nods in understanding and hops on the bed to sit next to the old god as he watches reruns of old cartoons. 

The peace he feels when he's not constantly looking after his two travel partners is unbelievable. He buys a six-pack of beer to celebrate the occasion and stocks up on Utah tourist shirts and hats before leaving the store. He sits on the curb, looking out over the parking lot. The desert stretches for a long time, it’s so dark that he can’t see the mountains that cut the dust into rocky cliffs, but he knows they’re there. He thinks, for a second, that maybe it would be nice for the three of them to live there, nothing but dirt surrounding them. Who would look for them here? This place is as safe as any to start a new life. 

The six beers are gone too fast and Spirit is left on the curbside with the tiniest buzz and an aching liver. He feels this tiny vibration between his ears, almost like a bee humming around. If he wasn’t familiar with the feeling, he would attribute it to his drinking and think it was a good feeling. Lord Death is having another dissonance episode. 

He shouldn’t have gotten comfortable, that’s what he’s thinking as he runs across the only road in Green River to get back to the hotel. The closer he gets, the more his ribcage tries to fold in on itself. He sees Gorgon Lab’s trucks and vans in the parking lot and prays to any god that’s listening that he’s not too late. He’s a fool rushing into war. Spirit get’s the haunting feeling that this will be the end of something, that this night will be a catalyst for disaster. 

  
  
  


Maka didn’t know what was coming. She was just starting to fall asleep, finally, when she heard the footsteps and hushed tones from outside their hotel room. She shot out of bed the second she heard the guns cock. Her soul sight showed five men, much larger than her, ready to bust in. The only thing she could think to do was scream and stab a man through the wall. She did exactly that. Lord Death must have been sleeping because when he startled awake, he fell off the bed and there was a split second before the girl’s vision doubles and she fell to the floor. 

_ ‘Use this medicine if he has an episode, he’ll say he doesn’t want it but it’s the only thing that can stop him.’  _ Spirit had told her. Maka wishes she could get her brain to actually think rather than whatever it’s doing now. Why does it feel like she’s dying? She  _ knows _ what dying feels like, she  _ knows _ the creeping feeling of darkness. This feeling is new; like someone is tearing apart her soul. Maka gathers every last iota of energy she has in her tiny body to crawl her way to the bathroom where the medicine is. The men who were outside of the room are wobbling their way inside now, visibly in pain and trying to lift their guns to shoot Lord Death. 

Maka’s mind fights her, she wants to make sure Lord Death lives more than anything, but she doesn’t know how much longer she can handle her soul being shredded. She’s supposed to  _ protect _ people, that’s the whole reason she was able to get this far; she has to protect her new friend. She’s crawling towards the armed men, thinking of her friends who were killed in the Labs, about her friends running for their lives right now.  _ If I can just save one person- _ , she repeats in her mind over and over, a mantra meant to keep her soul from falling apart. 

The relief she feels when she sees Spirit stagger through the doorway is astounding, she knows she isn’t fighting alone anymore. One of the men manages to pull the trigger of his pistol, the bullet takes out one of Spirit’s legs.  _ They still might be able to win.  _

The men are petrified, grinding their teeth and trying to force their muscles to move while being bombarded with dense, chaotic wavelength. They have no defense for this, none have resonated with another person’s soul in their life, none can fathom the pain they’re feeling at the core of their being. Maka manages to use this to her advantage, summoning her blades painfully slow because her soul is being called to the other side. 

The two curved blades crawl through the skin between her knuckles, her blood dripping on the pale carpet as she reaches for the kidneys of the nearest man. It feels like everything is in slow motion, her body is screaming and fighting every movement she makes. The man collapses and she trudges to the next armed intruder. It feels like she’s at the bottom of a lake, the pressure threatens to crush her. 

Something changes in the men, they suddenly can move more fluidly and aren’t fighting to stay alive. Maka feels Medusa’s wavelength, or more like the void where it’s supposed to be. She remembers this version of Medusa’s soul from the time she spent in the Labs, a hollowed-out spot where her soul should sit. The men are on Maka before she can think of what to do next. They kick her ribs and face until she stops moving. 

The moment Medusa walked through the doorway, only mildly put off by Lord Death’s soul dissonance, Spirit knew it was all over. If Maka hadn’t passed out from the pain, he thinks she would try to kill her. Medusa braces herself on walls and the foot of the bed to make her away to Death, he’s still flailing and howling from the pain his soul is in. The witch is staggering, sure, but her soul protect is on. It’s safe to assume that without it, Medusa would be a writhing mess on the floor like the rest of them. 

“The God of Death,” she says as Spirit watches her back, “I’m afraid you’ve grown obsolete.” 

Spirit tries to look away, he really does, tries to spare himself the pain of watching his God die but he is too weak. Medusa slowly raises the shotgun to Lord Death’s paper bag, Spirit tries to fight the weight of his soul and crawls with all his might to stop the inevitable cataclysm. The sound is deafening, Death’s soul-scream finally put to rest, punctuated by a shotgun blast. The Old God lays limp on the floor, soupy black tar spilling out of the hole in his face. Spirit bellows as much as his lungs will let him before Medusa slams the heel of her boot into the side of his face and he falls unconscious. 

Maka isn’t sure why she wakes up on the floor of the hotel room instead of in the back of a van with handcuffs on, but she sighs in relief. At that moment, she feels the ribs that were broken from the fighting. There are too many wounds to count, so she scans the room to see if she’s in immediate danger. Spirit is okay, laying on the floor and bleeding from his face, but breathing and his soul is intact. When she can’t see Lord Death, she clambers to stand up even though every muscle in her body hurts.

She should have stayed down. 

Can Death God’s actually die? She can feel the tears build up in her eyes, spilling over as she focuses as hard as she ever has on finding his soul. She remembers it being big, too big, so she really needs to concentrate this time. He can’t be dead, she just has to look harder, right? When she can’t find his soul, she buckles into the puddle of what was his face. She holds his gloved hand and weeps until Spirit wakes up. 

The two of them, wounded and bloody, make their way out of the hotel. Spirit knows he can’t bring Lord Death’s physical body with him, it was never him to begin with. He takes the tiniest bit of solace knowing that his soul still exists somewhere, it will just never be the same. The next death god will be chosen soon, so he says a prayer for his friend before he starts the car and heads towards North Dakota.


	6. Chapter six

Maka can’t process the carnage she caused and saw back in Utah. She’s eleven years old and the number of men and women she has killed is thirteen. There’s this feeling, deep in the back of her mind, that says that number will be significantly higher before she gets to rest. Spirit is fading fast in the driver’s seat of the car and she can’t help but to stare. The whites of his eyes are growing greyer and greyer, his face has grungy patches of scruff, his eyes are rimmed in red and so puffy, his hair is greasy and hanging from his skull. Spirit grips the steering wheel, hands scarred and bloody, knuckles bruised and swollen. He’s shaking.

“Stop staring.” he glances at her from the corner of his eyes, still hunched over in his seat.

Maka notices more, his pants are stained in blood, and his shit is ripped to shreds from where his blades came out. She wants to ask if it hurts, but she knows it does. Every time. A side effect of being a weapon for others to use freely is all the pain that it causes.

“I said knock it off, kid,” Spirit growls. 

“No.”

Spirit pulls over to the side of the abandoned back road somewhere in Colorado. He’s seething but tries to swallow the fire he wants to spit at the tiny girl. He knows it’s not her fault that his meister, his  _ God _ , is dead. Why is it so hard to get that through his head? It was five men against an eleven-year-old, there was no chance in hell she could’ve won. By the time Spirit had gotten to the room, Lord Death’s corporeal form was done for and Maka was being kicked into submission. He’d be lying if he said he went straight to save Maka. The thought of helping her was so far from the forefront of his mind; he needed to make sure Death would live. What an oxymoron. The redhead hadn’t counted on his oldest confidant to tell him he had a  _ daughter _ . Not really a daughter, because they just used parts of his DNA that were useful, but enough to be more than a stranger. It was enough to make him squirm hearing her scream in pain, enough to make him summon his blades. 

“I need to sleep,” he says after a minute of staring back at Maka. 

She’s tiny, definitely malnourished. She’s got too many scars on her for her age, too much pain behind her eyes to still be considered a child. Something was taken from her by Medusa, something that will never be returned no matter the effort put in. He can feel his stomach twist at the thought of what experimentations she was put through, what she and other kids like her had to survive. 

Spirit is claimed by a fitful sleep in the back of the cab. When he awakens, he has a horrible case of the spins. He thinks the car may actually be moving, so he looks around for Maka and, just as he thought, she has a toolbox from the trunk on the seat so she can drive down an unkept, abandoned road. How nauseous he feels seems justified now. 

“Stop the car.” He half-heartedly orders, but mostly he’s begging. He vomits out of the door before the car is even in park. He sees the blood but chooses not to address the implications that more of his organs are being claimed by his sickness. Maka stares him down, and he has a slight clue what she’s glaring about. He refuses to go to a doctor, especially because it means it’s going to take precious time. 

“I know what it means, but we can’t stop to have them tell me what I already know.” He reasons with Maka, “Also, you really shouldn’t be driving.”

“They could make you comfortable,” she says. He realizes then that it’s the first time he’s heard her voice. 

“So you  _ can _ talk,” he says as he wipes the bile from his mouth with his jacket sleeve. 

She nods but says no more. 

“Let me drive, your turn to sleep.” 

  
  
  
  
  


The trip north is as mundane as they come, they drive through tree groves, pass over creeks, and through towns. It leaves the two of them a lot of time to dwell on the past. They’re both still shell shocked by the events that took place in the hotel room. He doesn’t let Maka drive again, but they get there a day and a half after Lord Death’s passing. Since they can’t legally get Maka over the border, they have to hike up a mountain and hope the group hasn’t left without her. 

Spirit isn’t very good at reading coordinates or being a father, but he knows when he’s being tracked. He sees the same van one too many times in the rearview even though it seems like it’s trying to seem inconspicuous. It doesn’t work. The second Spirit parks, he tells Maka to run as fast as she can to the ridgeline. She doesn’t ask questions, but she looks scared. 

For the life of him, Spirit can’t think of what to do next. This really seems like the final crescendo before the song ends, the last hurrah. He can anticipate some things, at least. Medusa will chase after Maka, he’ll probably have to fight for his life. There is a certain kind of peace that overtakes the fear he should be feeling. _ A dying man that does not fear death is a powerful thing. _

Somewhere in the distance, he hears Stein’s voice. It’s cool and level like it always has been, but it’s laced is  _ anger _ and he demands the children to run. Spirit nears the commotion, kids scrambling into the wooded area behind him. Some of them can’t be older than seven, just these little things that are trying to stay alive. He sees, just past the clearing of trees, his last living friend in sorry shape. His face is beaten to high hell, clothes stained, but he’s standing. Stein is standing and he doesn’t look even close to backing down. There are four men with tasers and pistols closing in on him, but Spirit knows that Stein has more than a few tricks up his sleeve to thwart their advances. His soul wavelength swells and sends vibrations through the air, a welcome feeling of the tides possibly changing. 

“Spirit, help the kids, I can handle this,” Stein says in the redhead’s general directions, not sparing him a glance. 

He does as he’s told and sprints into the thick of the forest towards the rock face. Spirit wishes more than anything the gunshots he hears a few moments later don’t meet flesh. He can’t lose his only other meister too. 

Spirit runs harder than he ever has, lungs feeling itchy and like they’re on fire. He can do this, though. He  _ has _ to do this. He manages to take out two wandering child trackers but manages to be shot with whatever tranquilizer darts they had loaded into the guns. It smells like death; a mixture of blood and something  _ else. _ Something inherently evil, he thinks as it seeps into his bloodstream. He remembers at that moment that it has to be black blood. Eruka had explained that Gordon Labs had perfected the black blood serum to make the children more compliant while enhancing their weapon threshold. He can feel his liver start to fail him, unable to keep up with the demands of the black blood. 

He knows Maka is running right now, as he tries to keep himself together. He knows that she’s probably protecting her friends, sacrificing parts of herself to ensure the safety of others. He has to  _ move. _ Out of all the days to do nothing, this certainly isn’t one of them. She’s his  _ daughter. _

Spirit feels the black blood cocktail wash over him like pouring alcohol over a gaping wound. His soul is screaming that this is wrong, that this is the end. He’s glad he was fortunate enough to learn that death isn’t as scary as it sounds. The thought of his friend leading him gently to The End is all he could ask for. For now, all he has to do is make sure Maka gets to safety, he can rest when she is free from the clutches of Medusa. 

His body can’t contain all the power that the black blood gifts to it, he can feel his bones buckle against the sheer force of his muscles as he sprints to the camp where the children are imprisoned. His soul perception is better than it has been in his whole life. Something powerful and vivid, he counts the men with guns, the ones without, he sees the Kishin’s domesticated soul on a leash next to Stein’s barely intact soul. He sees Maka’s tiny, bright soul quivering and savage in a group of children. 

Spirit is in the middle of the maw of Medusa’s soldiers before his mind has time to acclimate. He feels the madness that comes with the black blood start to build at the base of this neck; he’s feral. Everything he wished he had the strength to do in the Great War festers within him as he tears into the men and women trying to take him down. They hadn’t expected the last living Death Scythe to come in contact with their secret weapon, so Medusa calls her attack dog in. What’s left of Spirit’s logical brain figures there’s a reason Asura hasn’t been used in all this time; a kishin can’t do much but eat souls, he’s a glorified hound in the shape of a gaunt and spindly man. 

Asura’s teeth are coated in saliva as he gnashes at Spirit in excited vigor. He gets a few good bites in too but Spirit can’t feel it with all the adrenaline pumping through him. He hears Maka’s pleas and screams for him to run, don’t die,  _ please don’t die too _ . But he has given up the hope he will live longer than a few hours from now and even that’s a stretch. The Kishin and death scythe circle around each other, Spirit bleeding profusely from his arms and neck. His blades have cut to Asura’s bone, his blood a black ooze instead of bright red. 

Spirit sees the opening and knows it will cost him another well-placed bite through his jugular. He goes for it because it really is okay. He’d rather die protecting than alone in a hospital bed. He’d rather die for  _ her. _ Maka watches as Spirit, one of the only people that wanted her alive, loses the better part of his neck between the teeth of a Kishin. She watches as his blade skewers Asura straight through his sternum and spine. 

Good and Evil lay on the dusty forest floor, bleeding out from their injuries. Maka is glad for it, if only for a second, because it leaves enough room in Medusa’s awe-struck defenses to cleave her femoral artery wide open. Witches can’t stop fatal injuries like that regardless the amount of dark magic they possess. The rest of the men are easier to pick off with the help of other weapon children. Soul, Liz, Patty, Harvar, Tsubaki, Black Star, Killik. They’re all alive, but at what cost? 


End file.
